Robin's Proton Saga saga (now KV6 powered)

[RobinOliver]

Well, as some of you know last year I acquired a Proton saga. I kept it to Facebook as I rarely have time to pop onto RR but I thought I'd share as you people absolutely love tat.
The short story is as follows:

£343 2nd time listing on ebay, low mileage no history and looked tidy.

Made some dodgy coilovers from a mk3 golf, fitted hoshinos, bit of engine fiddling. Exhaust turned into a straight pipe.

Decided to drive it to Austria for a laugh.

2 days before the ferry, find there's approx 4-5 square feet of areas needing fresh metal. As much as seeing the inner side of the rear tyres is amusing to me, it is less so to Austrian police.

Sorted it with literally 10 minutes to spare.

Drove to Austria, completing 3k+ miles in 12 days, though 7 different countries, in extreme discomfort. Had huge fun, handled like a go-kart, 125 on the autobahn, and was the hero of the trip. Didn't even have to open my tool box.

Fell in love.

Malaysia found out, made online news and ended up with 2k+ friend requests and going completely viral with some pages with 3 million likes sharing posts about me.

Brakes failed, I crashed, car was toast. Couldn't let go, so I fixed it as best I could.

That brings us to now. I've got new wheels, tyres, brakes, seats, harnesses, suspension and lots more. But 80hp isn't quite cutting the mustard.


Soooo I've decided that as a tribute to the partnership between lotus and proton back in the day, I am fitting a mighty rover k series vvc engine, mapped to match the 177hp variants found in the elise/exige.

It's going to be a lot of work, but I started stripping the original engine the other day, and I've already bought the full K series conversion and it's sat in the garden, and I've booked time off work to fit it. I've even had quotes on custom driveshafts.

The end goal?
Shed weight, double the power.

My deadline?
I'm driving it to Austria again for worthersee festival. Hotel is booked, and everything is in place.

Why?
Drugs are great. This is cheaper.


Pics?
Here's one from the trip last year

See you soon!

[antopipac]

Bookmarked! Ive always loved the styling of these cars ...You and I seem to share a similar approach to roadtrip preparations ie leave everything to the last minute

[dikkehemaworst]

Bookmarked! You sir, are living the dream. And i love reading about it. All the luck!

[RobinOliver]

Update, the front fell off.



Gear linkages out, trip to demon tweeks and money sneeze happened. Rip wallet.

More to follow.

[carpartsgopher]

Money sneeze 🤣

[RobinOliver]

Cleaned and ready for the hard work.

[brc76]

Protons seem to have aged very well. I cannot remember them looking so good. This, I'm watching.

[bmcnut]

A mate of mine had one of these in gold about 10 years ago, it had done 8000 miles when he got it from a chap who had to give up driving. I really liked it and offered to buy it off him, he declined and ran it into the ground, telling me i needed to get my head looked at. I still like them and they look even better now. Looking forward to seeing how this goes.

[keyring]

Love it! What a fun trip it’ll be this time around!! Bookmarked

[RobinOliver]

Busy afternoon doing what felt like very little but in reality was a huge step. Since the off, I'd been very worried about brake booster location, as it was looking like it would be in the way as the new engine will be on the opposite side of the engine bay to the original.

However, with minimal safety, no help and a throbbing migraine, it was the perfect day for enormous strenuous tasks.

It's not fully in, it's hanging, but as we speak it's sat on the subframe with the bonnet closed. Mounts are being made and are looking less difficult to make than originally anticipated.
Oh and it's so tight, I can't get my finger down the end of the gearbox if leaving space for an alternator belt change on the pulley side. If it was any closer to the brake booster, we'd be in trouble. The radiator is going to have to be on top of the gearbox or directly behind the front bumper as the alternator bracket is very much in the way. The lower subframe is going to have to be chopped but thankfully the piece in question isn't as necessary as it used to be as it no longer supports an engine. I will fabricate some triangular bracing instead. All in all a day of progress, and knowing what's next. But here are a couple of potato pictures for your viewing pleasure.

[RobinOliver]

Drivers bucket seat mostly in place and surprisingly not even wonky. Not a bad afternoons work.


Also began smashing up some of the sound deadening, as its unbelievably heavy. Given the amount I've taken up and the surface area the rest covers, there's well over 50 kilograms of the stuff in here.
That'll be going straight to the tip.

[keyring]

Stripping all that weight will make a massive difference!
Would be good to get some track action once you've got it built, I think it would surprise quite a few cars!

[ovimor]

I think this has a massive, pressed steel 'dead beam' rear...

Go light... Like the grasstrack minis = scaffy pole + t/links!

OVIMOR

[trimtechniques]

Bookmarked! This is going to be good. And local to me. May see you at some local car meets over the summer hopefully.

[forkliftfred]

Great story. I think you may miss the sound deadening on the trip to Austria though. Love the wheels in the first picture.

[RobinOliver]

Busy weekend again, good progress though. Bit slow due to horrific weather Saturday, and intermittent hail every 5 minutes on the Sunday.

Drivers bucket seat rail fully secured.

Engine now mounted and hanging on its own, thankfully only a tiny bit of bonnet frame trimming is going to be required. It was a lot of faffing, and I ended up using four different engine mounts. I used the engine mount from an MG ZR, and an MG ZS mount rubber. I used some THICK L shaped steel pieces which were scrap from a land rover bucket seat frame welded to the front frame rails, and a plate underneath inside the wheel arch to sandwich it together. Gearbox side, I used the original engine side mount. I chopped off the two sides, shortened one and flipped it. Welded that back to the original piece, then used that as lateral support for the second support rubber which is from an MGF. this threaded through the flipped mount, and through a MG TF gearbox mount with 10mm or so chopped off the edge so it doesn't contact the strut tower to hang the box from the frame rail on the opposite side.

All in all, recycling of existing parts with as little welding and cutting of original components as possible. Quite proud of my bodge.
For anyone doubting the strength, I hoisted the engine back up still mounted and lifted the car to move it slightly across the drive. No problem.
Now I just need to measure up some torque braces to stop it wobbling backwards and forwards, which allows me to get driveshafts made up.
After that, it's the biggest job : gear linkages. I've got a whole tunnel and linkages cut out of a scrap MG ZR 1.8 which will mount to my gearbox and act as one of the torque braces, and I'll have to chop and weld the whole lot in place. But that's a problem for another day.
It's starting to come together and I'm finally starting to see progress which is nice because I have 55 days before I leave for Austria from today!

Excuse the bird turd welds, I favour solid deep welds rather than pretty coin stacks. No weld p0rn here.

More updates soon!

[RobinOliver]

Had a busy few weeks, haven't done much.

Today began working out the gear linkages.

First impressions made the cable setup from the original box seem totally useless however on further inspection, the planned mg zr solid linkage is looking like more hassle due to the arrangement of the subframe and the steering rack getting in the way a bit.
I'm going to try and re-use the original linkage setup with a few mgf and mgtf parts I've acquired.
The zr linkage isn't a total waste however because whether I use it or not it will provide a nice solid torque brace to bolt into the passenger side of the central exhaust tunnel.
Saucy pics, pigeon poo welds and many bodges to come.

[RobinOliver]

Say hello to my little friend.

[RobinOliver]

Ecu returned from KBL Tuning, ready to rock. Just the wiring to do on that front (oh yay)

Also here's a picture of my knob.

[austinpowers]

I would be told of if I left my knob on the table.